Email Jim at jthompson@taii.com
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Some people may feel that the quality of work they do for tasks within their company, especially when it comes to presentations of general company information, does not have to be of the quality they would put forth to a customer. At one time, I was in this camp.
If you are in a large corporate environment, this attitude is certain death, for you have no idea where your presentations may finally land. Wherever it ends up it is going to be a reflection on you. I have moved to a position where I think this is true even in small companies.
If you have a different level of quality in your work, depending on whether it is to be presented inside the company or to a prospect or customer, you are really sending several messages.
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First, you are sending the message that you have low standards, for you are saying that quality is just for show; I don't live it, I just do it when I have to do it. This can affect the entire culture of your company.
There is a famous auto parts retail company that lives this way. It has a regional headquarters near where I live. Rumor has it that working there is an awful experience. Employees treat each other in derogatory ways. The culture is vile and abusive. Yet, they are often known for their customer service.
In one of my part-time activities, I am a soldier in the Georgia State Defense Force, an all-volunteer part of the Georgia National Guard. We are paid nothing. Yet we hold ourselves and each other to very high quality standards. It is our esprit de corps that helps us achieve assigned tasks, whether it is raining, snowing or 100 degrees in the shade. Quality comes first.
It is important that our inside quality meets the level we expect to demonstrate to our prospects and customers.
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However, I have seen inside quality corrupted in another way. I have seen senior executives demand that executive office décor be of the highest level. I once saw a shipment of about 20 four-drawer wood- faced file cabinets purchased for the executive suite rejected by the CEO because the grain in the wood paneling on drawer faces did not line up perfectly. China and flatware would have to be procured to feed this CEO when we ate at internal meetings because he would not eat off paper plates (while our company, in another facility, was making paper plates).
Facilities under this CEO's governance had difficulty finding the money to paint their premises, even to repair the roofs-because of false concepts of quality.
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The bottom line? Quality should be the same everywhere, inside your company and outside your company. Quality should be held to the same standard all over your company, whether it has one employee or fifty thousand employees.
Quality must not be an attribute that employees think can be turned on or off, dependent on time, place and resources. Apply the same quality everywhere all the time. Your business will thank you for it.
What do you think? We would love to hear from you via our quiz this week, which you may take here.
Safety always must be executed with high quality in mind. Safe work is quality work and quality work is safe work.
Be safe and we will talk next week.
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